Very very very very slow laptop

[unclecrash]

Hi all.

My sons laptop (IBM thinkpad on xp sp2) suddenly started running very slow. Startup sometimes took an hour, sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes hour and half. Once started the system would freeze for a minute or two then work then freeze again for a while and so on. All for no reason he said. After some discussion he admitted he learned about bios settings from a friend and meddled with them thinking he could improve performance (which didn't need improving. kids!) and that despite my advice he kept the laptop on a shelf just inches from the front of a radiator.
I have set the bios back to default reset the bios and tried other settings myself to no avail. i managed to get norton to scan but no problems found. Safe mode stalls while loading the file after mup.sys.
Recovery console requires a password that cant be remembered and so we tried to complete a re-installation.
The re-installation moves very slowly taking a day to start then a day to prepare and three days to format 27% of the drive. in the last two days it has only formatted one percent a day and now seems frozen on 29%.
I have absolutely no idea as to what to do next so advice is gratefully accepted.
Is it possible the heat from the radiator has damaged something like the processor?

[dangel]

Could be the hard drive's on the way out? Very common problem on laptops and you mention formatting taking a heck of a long time by any standard.

Is the hard drive light on constantly? (or was it when windows was running rather - obviously it is now it's formatting).

[unclecrash]

Thanks for your reply.
I interupted format so checking the drive light under windows o/s is not possible. When booting from disk (to reinstall) the light stays on (doesn't flash)while "Windows Setup" loads files, and drivers (this process seems to run at a reasonable speed) but the light goes out as soon as the bottom message bar reads "Setup is starting Windows" and stays out. From here to the next option (recovery or installation) is at least a days wait but it will get there with the light out.

[dangel]

The fact that formatting took so long suggests major harddrive problems - the disk could be spending a lot of time marking sectors as bad etc. When you're talking about things taking "days" it's not a good thing

Some diagnostics you can run from a boot CD: Ultimate Boot CD - Overview

The only other problem that comes to mind is possible memory failure - Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool is a good checker for that (and again you can boot it off a CD)
but it really sounds like the hard drive from what you've posted. No harm in checking both though! With memory testing the general rule is a full pass (all tests) is a reasonable indicator of good memory - but often you may need to leave it running overnight to be sure (some say a couple of days but i've never needed to run it that long).

Concentrate on the HD to begin with is my feeling.

[unclecrash]

Many thanks dangel.
Before i go............ could the radiator have heat damaged the hard drive? I need to convince him to keep his gear away from a radiator or is this kind of heat damage not heard of.

[dangel]

Many thanks dangel.
Before i go............ could the radiator have heat damaged the hard drive? I need to convince him to keep his gear away from a radiator or is this kind of heat damage not heard of.

It's possible - laptops pack a lot into a small space and heat does kill things over time. Equally it could be knocking it around or just general wear and tear. But as a rule of thumb you never want to make PC's any hotter than they already are

[peterb]

Excessive heat certainly won't prolong the life of a drive! It depends on the failure mode - if the drive is writing/marking bad sectors, heat is unlikely to be a problem - heat usually damages things like bearings or other mechanical parts. (although if the drive is rotating too slowly, or seek times are slow - as a result of heat damage - that would significantly impair performance anyway, and could also lead to seek errors and as a consequence, marking tracks as bad.)

As Dangel says, the hdd is a likely culprit, but asd it is so easy to run memtest (doesn't require the hard drive) it is worth doing that first, just for elimination purposes.

[unclecrash]

Many thanks. I will show him this thread and beat him gently with a thinkpad.
Dangel, on the link you gave for ultimate boot cd the links for downloading dont work. The mirror site is the same. Anything else that will do the job?

[dangel]

this works for me: click me

and Ultimate Boot CD Version 4.1.0 Zip

Don't use a thinkpad - try a brick - it's cheaper and more robust

[peterb]

Many thanks. I will show him this thread and beat him gently with a thinkpad.

Take the hard drive out first (although if it is knackered, that might be a good final use for it!)

[unclecrash]

Many thanks people.
I say it again, a great site